I am so excited to be able to share an excerpt of this amazing book

Prologue

LOIS

Pumpkins fill the kitchen and Lois’s hand is bleeding. The thin carving blade bends in the orange flesh, snagging on her attempt at a goblin’s eye. She tries to pull it out, rescue the design, but it’s stuck, and even tugging won’t release it. Abandoning the blade, she goes to the butler sink and stares out at the blue sky, lying heavy and low over the Hertfordshire fields, rolling down from the big stone house. The tiers of the Roman amphitheatre lie to the right, the ruins of its old stage still used in the summer. The scene is almost set.

Ebba had guessed they’d be back around six. They’d just have to make do with the pumpkins already finished, fat with their garish grins. She will light the candles once it’s dark.

‘Lois?’ Iqbal says, entering the kitchen. ‘The new catering staff are arriving soon. I’ll hang the sweets in the garden and the tray of drinks is still out there. I’ll bring it in once the helicopter has left. I think they’ve just taken off.’

‘Let’s take the pumpkins out in a minute. There’re ten, one for each of us. I’ve given up on the last one, so that can be mine – more mutated than ghoulish. Thanks.’ She smiles. The house will be transformed, ready for the party’s return.

She had almost gone with them today, but what with the letter, it hadn’t felt right. Someone had to stay, and Ebba is better at selling than she is. She’ll take more pleasure later, when everything is announced. The deal is almost done.

Sliding the brass tap handle to the right, the water is cold; a gush runs over her hand and the wound reopens, blood spreading into the water and turning it pink.

A crack sounds overhead and she leans forward, looking out over the sink up into the sky, searching. It’s loud like thunder, or the heavens splitting.

A black mass is falling. Crashing down, spinning. It’s so high up that at first she can’t make it out, then a scream builds, spilling out of her throat like it’s been cut.

‘Iqbal! The helicopter!’ she screams, running from the kitchen. Knives clatter to the stone floor and she slips on some pumpkin flesh, discarded and splayed on the huge flagstones, scrubbed and polished for the weekend.

‘Iqbal!’ she screams again. She runs out of the back door, out into the October air, past the coffee cups from earlier, past the tray of cocktail glasses, and she takes the steps in one leap, landing on the grass, her feet skidding from under her on the autumn wetness, which seems to have painted each blade.

‘I’m calling 999!’ Iqbal’s voice comes from behind her and she gets up, drinking air, gulping it. Her chest is tight.

‘Ebba,’ she says, not daring to think. Her legs run again, running ahead of her mind, which has slowed to a photo-frame image of her sister as a child.

The helicopter falls fast. It’s almost down, dipping left, right. The pilot must be fighting hard and, for a second, she thinks it will land. Land hard but squarely.

The air is fast with the spin of the blades and just as it looks as though it will finally settle, next to the stone ruins of the Roman amphitheatre, it tilts, comes down wounded on its side, crashing on the old stage. The uneven stone makes for an uneasy bed.

The bang is loud. She reaches the top of the path, overlooking the outdoor theatre’s low stone walls, the circle at the centre, the grassy rises. Ebba, Filip, Aksel, Richard, Sarah, Marieke. The people who helped her build Archipelago. The people who, yesterday, were drinking champagne and laughing. So alive. But she can only think of Ebba. She stands and screams.

Smoke rises, black; the helicopter lies, a felled bird, its heart still beating, sounding out the last pattern of its wings

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Disclaimer – Thank you to Sophie and Head of Zeus for my gifted copy of this book